Answers Don't Ease Sorrow

Cold and dispassionate, the images that were supposed to provide answers flitted across the TV screens of survivors throughout the country.

The images meant different things to different people. Some reacted in disbelief, others in anger and pain. In the end, they all were bound by a loss they found difficult to explain.

In Newport News, Robert H. Jones, whose 19-year-old son was killed in the April 19 explosion on the Iowa, sat on a couch in his Oyster Bay Village apartment and watched with his hands clasped stoically.

Suddenly, he shifted.

"That's where Brian was, right there," he said. "That's where my little boy was, that window."

Jones said his son was positioned only about five feet from Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Clayton M. Hartwig, the sailor the Navy said "probably" caused the explosion that killed 47 sailors.

Two Navy officials, one of them a commander, were on hand Thursday to sort through the facts with Jones and brief him on the Navy's report. The details helped somewhat, Jones said, but in the end, he came to the conclusion that "regardless of what the finding in those pages is, it isn't going to bring my son back."

He was left, instead, with memories, and his son's letters that catalogued a life at sea.

Jones said the Navy's report Thursday confirmed his suspicions.

"Those 16-inch guns are older than I am, and they've never had anything like this happen," he said. "If anything would go wrong with them, it would have gone wrong during war time."

But he felt no anger toward Hartwig or his family. On a day such as Thursday, he said, there was only room for sorrow.

"I've never been angry at anybody over this," he said. "I feel that if it's a fact that Hartwig did do this, then I feel sorry for his family."

Others found it harder to forgive.

"It's been a real tough day," said 46-year-old Paul E. Justice Sr. of Matewan, W.Va, whose son Michael died on the Iowa. "I've still not gotten over it, and I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it. If it was just an accident, I believe it would have been a little easier."

Robert James Gedeon II of Lakewood, Ohio, said he believes the Navy has covered up something.

"I don't care what they have in their report," said Gedeon, who lost his 22-year-old son, Robert III. "I just saw a videotape that a 12-year-old could make."

Gedeon attended Hartwig's funeral and became close to his family in the aftermath of the tragedy. He said he believed the blast was caused by unstable gunpowder.

In Bordentown, N.J., a father said he hopes the Navy's conclusions will soothe his shattered nerves.

Ernest Steven Hanyecz, whose 28-year-old son Ernest died, said he had been unable to sleep at night. He often wakes from a recurring nightmare in which he is standing on the battleship's gun turret as it explodes. He drove to Hampton Roads once to tell naval investigators his theory of the explosion, that an explosive device had been placed in the turret. He called survivors and friends on a daily basis to find out what they thought might have happened on the battleship.

Thursday, he said he finally felt at peace. He could convince himself the tragedy would not happen again.

"Before the Navy people were here, I was highly upset," he said. "I didn't know what happened. It was like a guessing game."